55
Aldrich Ames, the CIA agent who spied for the Soviet Union and Russia in one of the most damaging intelligence breaches in US history, has died in a Maryland prison. He was 84.
His death on Monday was confirmed by the Bureau of Prisons.
Ames admitted to passing on information to Moscow for nearly a decade, including the identities of western agents behind the Iron Curtain.
He was arrested in February 1994 and pleaded guilty without a trial to espionage and tax evasion.
In a jailhouse interview with the Washington Post the day before he was sentenced, Ames said he was motivated to spy by “financial troubles, immediate and continuing”.
Ames admitted being paid $2.5m by Moscow.
